Sarchedon Part 52

REQUITED

"I have cast stones in the air to fall on mine own head! I have knelt at the stream, and, lo, the waters were bitter and defiled! O Kalmim, there is neither faith, nor honour, nor grat.i.tude in Ninyas, the son of Ninus. May the king live for ever!"

She laughed outright. It was a rare jest to behold Sethos in a vein of serious reflection; above all, to hear him revile the prince to whom, through good and evil, he had been a devoted servant, notwithstanding the vices, caprices, and heartless ingrat.i.tude of his lord.

"You are but a child," she answered lightly, "and for all your downy lip and shapely limbs, not yet fit to run alone. Trust a strained bow, a frayed string, a blown horse, or a baffled woman--all these will quit them better in the hour of need than a king on the throne, whom you have served when he was a captive in the dungeon."

They were standing together on a terrace of the royal palace in Babylon, looking over many a league of gardens, vineyards, lofty palms, thin silvery streams--vast tracts of desert sand beyond--all s.h.i.+ning and glowing in the bright morning sun, while their own comely faces and splendid attire were rich and deep in colour as the surrounding hues of earth and sky.

A great change had indeed taken place at home, since the queen's expedition to Armenia left the city without a ruler, while its lawful prince languished a weary prisoner, losing health, energy, and all the dignity of manhood, under supervision of the priests of Baal. The return of a.s.sarac, bearing, as he affirmed, full powers and authority on the part of Semiramis, sickening even to death in the far north, had extricated Ninyas from captivity, and placed him on the throne to which he was ent.i.tled by the laws of s.h.i.+nar, the eunuch, in a secret interview, extorting a solemn oath of vengeance on the mother who had deprived him of his liberty and his empire. Broken in health and courage by close imprisonment, acting on a frame already yielding to the effects of unbridled indulgence, the young king was but a tool in the hands of a.s.sarac, who soon conceived the idea of making him also a mere stepping-stone to the attainment of supreme power at which he aimed.

Though scrupulous in practising the usual forms and observances towards his lord, the eunuch scarcely affected to ignore his own real superiority, affirming only that his words and deeds were prompted by the immediate inspiration of his G.o.d.

"And Baal bids him store up goodly treasures for himself, you may be sure," observed Kalmim, discussing with her old admirer the character of their new and arbitrary ruler; "so that at any time he may win over the spearmen with spoil, as he secured the priests by promises, and the prophets of the grove by threats. Gold and steel, Sethos--these are the only real forces on earth, and I sometimes think there is no power that can dominate them in heaven."

"Good faith," answered Sethos, "is precious as the one and true as the other. I have never wavered, Kalmim, in my loyalty to Ninyas, nor my love for _you_."

"And what have they profited you?" she retorted lightly. "You stood by the prince in good and evil, eating with him the bitter morsel and sharing the cup of affliction. One fine morning, Baal forsooth sends a fat man in white to pull the king of nations out of a prison-house and put him in a palace with a royal mantle on his shoulders, and a golden sceptre in his hand. Then comes the cup-bearer, who has proved his readiness to go to the gates of death with his lord, and asks to be made leader of the host and to stand on the king's right hand, in the day of his glory as in the night of his bondage. What said Ninyas to the poor youth, in answer to so modest a request?"

"He laughed in my face," replied the other, with considerable irritation. "And if there is justice in heaven it will be repaid him fourfold. May the king live for ever!"

"So much for loyalty to a prince," she continued. "Now for truth to a woman. Have you _really_ kept faith with me, Sethos, all this time? It is many a long day since you and I first met by a strange chance in the queen's paradise, and you told me--I forget what you told me, but it was something very foolish, no doubt."

"You know I have," said Sethos bitterly, almost fiercely, turning his head away while he spoke.

It was a short answer, but to a woman's ear worth a whole series of protestations. In perception of such matters, Kalmim was no whit behind her s.e.x.

If he had but looked at her, he would have seen her blush, and surely in no encounter whatsoever should a man take his eye off his enemy.

Sethos, alas, was completely at the adversary's mercy, and she trampled him accordingly.

"Well, and what has this service, also, profited you for your pains?"

she asked in taunting accents, wholly unable to forbear the pleasure of tormenting him. "You have stood by _me_ at my need faithfully, n.o.bly, grudging nothing, keeping nothing back. When the time comes, you will ask _me_ too to make you my captain and leader, to seat you on my right hand till I die, and, Sethos, I too--I shall laugh in your face!"

"Be it so," he answered in a grave quiet voice, so unlike his usual tones that she glanced anxiously towards him. He seemed sad and troubled, yet looked like a man whose loyalty was still unshaken and unimpeachable.

"And you are tired of it at last?" she asked, in the same mocking accents.

"It is too late to change now," was his answer, with a wan and weary smile.

"Ninyas refused you?" she continued, looking straight into his eyes.

He bowed his head in silence.

"But _I_ have only laughed at you," she murmured, drawing her veil hastily over her face. "And, Sethos, have you pa.s.sed your life in Babylon and not found out that liking grows with laughter as blossoms come with rain? _I_ am not a king, I am only a woman; and I cannot deny a faithful servant who asks the reward he has toiled through storm and suns.h.i.+ne to attain."

He would have pa.s.sed his arm round her waist, but with a dexterous twirl, the result, perhaps, of considerable practice, she placed herself out of reach.

"No," she said with imposing force and gesture, "my friend, and more than friend, this is not a time for follies such as these. Some day, when the heavy hand of Baal has been taken off this unhappy city, when men's flocks and herds and wives and children have ceased to be at the command of those who are but hewers of wood and drawers of water in the temple, I may peradventure suffer you to--to--well, to touch the tip of my finger with your lips. But now, the first duty of every son of Ashur is to cast off this hateful yoke that bows his nation to the dust. O that the old lion had but lived to see the white robes lording it in his well-beloved city! He would have cleared them out with fire and sword, ay, though all the host of heaven had come down from the stars to take their part.

"Look at _me_! O, I know well you never take your eyes off me if you can help it; but I am serious now. Look at _me_, I say--a woman who in her life before never knew a thought nor care weightier than the smoothing of a plait, the planting of a bodkin: I tell you I would take up spear and s.h.i.+eld to-morrow, if I might help to lay a.s.sarac and his priests in their blood at the altar before which they serve. What have they done for us? What has Baal himself done for us since he has governed from the throne of Nimrod? Corn is dear, water scarce, the people starve, and the priests wax fatter, prouder, fiercer, day by day. Even Beladon, who used to be meek and gentle as a weaned child, and was indeed a personable youth, and one of my truest friends--even Beladon, I say, holds that we are to be at his beck and call without question or murmur, you and I, and every one within the hundred gates of the city wall."

"May Nisroch tear him limb from limb!" exclaimed Sethos, in high wrath; for he had long been jealous of the comely young priest's intimacy with Kalmim, and it was in no ignorance of his feelings that the latter now worked upon her listener with the hated name.

"Yes, Beladon," she continued, "though he be not so bad as some of the rest. But how long are we to bear this? How long are we to be trodden on and kept down, not by a conqueror of worlds like old Ninus, wielding bow and spear as I would handle a needle, but by a slothful priest, a eunuch forsooth, in flowing robes and linen tiara, who never lifted weapon deadlier than gilded fir-cone or fresh-gathered lotus, never bore heavier burden than jewelled casket, nor faced a fiercer enemy than the poor sheep he slays to please his G.o.d!"

"Nay, there you wrong him," argued honest Sethos. "If all that comes out of Armenia be true, never bolder champion mounted war-chariot than a.s.sarac, the priest of Baal."

"Armenia!" retorted Kalmim, with infinite contempt--"a desert peopled by a few half-starved wretches, doubtless naked and without arms. Besides, was he not warring in the mountains under the banner of the Great Queen?

I pray you, when did Semiramis ever fail to conquer where she set the battle in array? And now, by his own confession, she languishes with a death-wound, and he is not ashamed to be standing here within the brazen gates in a whole skin! O, it pa.s.ses all patience! But I know my mistress well. Surely never yet was that shaft feathered which could drink her life-blood. Once I loved her dearly, and she repaid my faithful service with the grat.i.tude of--of a Great Queen, I suppose! But for all that is past and gone, I will never believe, wounded or unwounded, she could abandon the sceptre of Nimrod, or license Baal himself to usurp her authority in the land of s.h.i.+nar and the city she loves to call her own."

"But Ninyas sits in the royal palace," observed Sethos, "under the mystic circle and the wings of gold. It is before Ninyas that the spearmen defile at noon, and to Ninyas that the people cry for justice in the gate at sunrise, when he is sober enough to hear."

"And how often is that?" exclaimed Kalmim. "Not once in twenty days. But are you too blind to perceive, O simple youth, that while Ninyas wears the tiara, a.s.sarac holds the sceptre; while Ninyas fits the arrow, a.s.sarac draws the bow? It is time Babylon were rid of both. The fire that crowns that sacred tower burns doubtless night and day; but what is that to me if it be so high up I cannot thread my needle in its light?

When Baal means to rule over us in person, let him come down and show himself. I am tired of a G.o.d who never answers, call on him loudly as you will."

Such liberal sentiments would have astonished her companion more, but that Sethos, during his lord's captivity, had dwelt long enough within its sacred precincts to have lost much of his former reverence for the mysteries of the temple, of his early confidence in the unseen power of its G.o.d. He felt somewhat bewildered, nevertheless, and astray in this uprooting of a faith that seemed like a birth-right to every son of Ashur, and asked helplessly,

"If Baal cannot, and Ninyas must not, and a.s.sarac will not, succour us, to whom then are we to look?"

"To the Great Queen," answered Kalmim proudly: "never believe but she will come again in her majesty, beautiful as morning, fierce and terrible as the storm that rises with midday. I have seen her angered once, only once in all my life. I tell you, Sethos, I would rather stand in the presence of Nisroch to be consumed than face the blaze of those eyes again. She spoke not, scarcely moved a limb; but I felt as the lamb must feel when the leopard has made her spring, and there is no escape.

In her love, her hatred, and her desire, she knows no bounds and acknowledges no check, yet never sunlight was welcomed by captive in a dungeon as would be that beautiful face to-day in Babylon by the people of the Great Queen."

While she spoke, she looked wistfully out over the desert towards the north; Sethos, watching her eager face, saw it brighten with a sudden gleam of triumph and hope. Following the direction of her eyes, he observed the flash of spears through a dense cloud low on the horizon, that denoted a body of hors.e.m.e.n on the march.

Pointing towards it, Kalmim burst into tears.

"It is the Great Queen!" she sobbed. "For my sake, Sethos--for my sake, will you not be on our side?"

CHAPTER LVII

BETRAYED

Pacing to and fro in the familiar cedar gallery, vexed, troubled, and impatient, a.s.sarac shot glances of anger and defiance at the four-winged image of Nisroch, as though reproaching the G.o.d in whom he did _not_ believe for withholding aid he would have considered it childish folly to implore. Though he had dispatched a messenger in eager haste to seek out the tents of the Anakim, and renew the offer of promotion he made to Sarchedon, so preoccupied was he, that Beladon had already prostrated himself more than once, ere his superior seemed conscious of his presence. The younger priest wondered to see the resolute and subtle eunuch so changed, so worn, so saddened. He marked the restless step, the sullen gesture, the moody unquiet eye, remembering, not without pity, a caged wild beast that had been trapped and brought into Babylon, long ago by certain hunters of the mountain, as a gift to the Great Queen.

Though a faithful servant enough, while a keener intellect and firmer spirit held him in subjection, he bethought him somewhat remorsefully it was time to leave his master now.

a.s.sarac's eyes wandered over the other's figure with the unconscious stare of a sleep-walker ere they lighted into recognition, then he started and exclaimed, "How now, Beladon? Returned so soon? What tidings of Semiramis--I mean of Sarchedon, and the children of Anak with whom he dwells?"

"Let not my lord be wroth," was the answer. "Though his servant fled through the waste like an ostrich, yet was he wiser than that foolish bird, which plies her long legs and helpless wings to meet the storm of thunder and lightning she dreads. I have heard the thunder of the queen's chariots; I have seen the lightning of her spears. Instead of scouring the desert to seek the Anakim, lo, I turned bridle, and hastened back that I might warn my lord of her approach."

Though something seemed to tell him the information was tantamount to a death-warrant, his heart leaped up with a wild unreasoning joy.

"The queen!" he exclaimed, while the blood flew to his wan heavy cheek.